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Friday, 22 August 2014

It's been a while since i last posted i know. We TV news camera operators can't spend all day tapping away on computer keyboards to bring you the delightful stories and behind the scenes insights into our world of very important news gathering operations, tight deadlines and the wearing of short trousers in inclement British weather.

No. You see, we have the day to day filming to do, lights to put up and take down, microphones to clip on, cables to coil and journalists to wrangle. We have miles and miles of driving to do, parking places to find without being fined and street corners to hang around on.

We have impenetrable, long winded and vague briefing sheets to read and decipher, phone calls to take from producers, lost guests to find, deadlines to beat, footage to file and WiFi coverage to swear at. We have tripods to carry, sound bags to hump and sore backs to nurse.

We've been given the wrong post code, address and name. Someone will be late whilst we turned up on time, It's our third filming job of the day but the first for our refreshed reporter, we haven't had any lunch and nobody has offered us a drink.

We got called out on a day off, our weekend ruined and dinners have been missed. We get fluff stories about deckchairs to film. We get stuck in traffic gridlock. We get another deadline and another producer on the phone, we get more footage to cut and file from the road side. Our WiFi is weak and our uploads look bleak. We do it with minutes to spare.

Our phones are constantly going beep... We rub a tired eye and read the text:

"Hi Paul, sorry for the late text. Just wanted to say that your deckchairs stuff was amazing, everybody said so. Sorry to hear how bad the traffic was and therefore how tight the turnaround was! Thanks, K."

We smile at little kind gestures and drive home. You see... It's been a busy time.

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Who is ukcameraman..?

Freelance Cameraman and owner of Media Attention Ltd. News, Sport, Features and Documentary cameraman to News and Features Broadcasters in the UK and abroad, including the BBC, ITN, SKY, CH4 and 5, CNN, and many others.